


tom

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [49]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Human/Synth Switch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Laura tries to save her brother when he runs into the road. Instead, they’re both hit.When she wakes up, Tom is gone and nothing will ever be the same.(basically a Laura/Leo switch)





	tom

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 2, Day 7 of the Humans 4-Week Challenge. The prompt was ‘Human/Synth Switch AU’
> 
> Works as a companion piece to ‘Ruby’, kind of by accident.

Laura awoke slowly. Her head hurt. No, she realised, it wasn’t pain exactly, just a strange feeling of something having changed. Her thoughts came to her differently, like they were in a foreign language she had some grasp of, but wasn’t yet fluent in. She felt herself blinking, but her eyes felt different too, as though they were obeying someone else’s commands. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a soft kind of moan. 

It was enough to bring her mother to her side, though. Sylvia looked down at her, as if critical. Laura wondered vaguely what she had done this time. It had to be something bad, but she couldn’t remember what she’d been doing before she’d fallen asleep. Or could she? There was something. Something with Tom, he was in danger. She had to get to Tom. 

She tried to speak his name, but her throat just didn’t seem her own. The foreignness in her brain didn’t want to pass on the message, so it just left it circling in Laura’s head. _Is Tom alright? Where is he? Where am I?_

“Don’t try to move,” said Laura’s mother, sternly. “You shouldn’t be awake yet. It’s too soon.”

Laura wanted to say that she didn’t particularly want to be awake either, that everything was scary and wrong, and she didn’t know what time it was anyway so it wasn’t her fault that she’d woken too early. But all of it stayed silently within her. That was probably for the best in this case. She wondered if she’d ever be able to speak again. 

“I’m putting you back under,” said her mother. “This might hurt.”

But it didn’t hurt, not really, not even when the needle pierced Laura’s skin. She was removed from everything. The sensation was there, but her brain wasn’t receiving it as pain. The edges of her vision began to darken, and she closed her eyes so that everything could go black at once. 

The next time she woke, things were a bit easier. Her brain wasn’t quite as foggy, and Laura managed to move one of her hands, just a little. She didn’t try to speak until her mother had come over, apparently alerted to Laura’s movement by a succession of beeps made by a nearby monitor. 

“Mum,” she managed to say. “Where…”

“You’re in my laboratory,” Sylvia said. “Think of it as a hospital ward. I’m making you better.”

But that wasn’t what Laura was going to ask. “Tom,” she said. “Wherestom.” It came out as one word, slurred but desperate. She looked up, trying to communicate through her eyes how urgent it was. Maybe her mother didn’t even know Tom had been in danger. Maybe it was too late. 

Her mother’s face twitched, and Laura wished she was a bit more herself so she could interpret the expression properly.

“Don’t worry about that now,” said Sylvia. “You were in an accident, Laura. I’ve had to rebuild some of your brain, using synthetic technology. Do you understand?” 

Something told her this ought to be a shock, but Laura felt strangely calm at the revelation, if only because it began to explain why her brain had been feeling so different and wrong. “Yes,” she said. “Wo'happened?”

Sylvia hesitated, as if trying to decide whether to tell the truth. “A car,” she said. “You were hit by a car.” 

The words sent a jolt through Laura, as a memory surfaced violently in her mind. Blood on the pavement. An almighty crash, and screams, and the crunching of metal. Tom’s blue t-shirt flapping in the wind, the screech of tires. A bird singing. Not in that order. She didn’t know what order it had happened in. But suddenly she knew what had happened. Tom had walked out in front of a car, and she had tried to pull him back. 

“ _Tom_ ,” she said again, with more feeling than before. 

Her mother only shook her head. Then she walked out of Laura’s eyeline, apparently around to a computer behind her daughter’s head. Laura only knew because she could hear the tap-tap-tap of her mother’s fingers on a keyboard.

She concentrated on the noise, on what she could hear, because she found that she could no longer see properly. Her vision was watery. _I’m crying_ , she realised. _I’m crying because Tom is dead_. 

She wondered if the part of her brain that was still human was the part had wanted to cry, while the part that was now synth could so coldly think a sentence like _Tom is dead_ , which surely couldn’t be true. Tom was more alive than anyone Laura knew. He was her funny little brother, so sunshiney and good. He loved telling jokes, even if nobody else thought they were amusing.

Sometimes he made himself laugh so hard that he didn’t look where he was going. 

It was Laura’s job to make sure he looked left and right before crossing the road. 

It was Laura’s job to keep him safe.

She sucked in her breath as a pain welled up in her chest, but it wasn’t the sort that any of her mother’s instruments could measure or dull. Her brother was dead because of her. She’d killed him because she wasn’t watching properly. She’d tried to fix her mistake by following him into the path of an oncoming car, but she’d been too late. For the rest of her life, it would be too late, and it would only keep on getting later and later and later. 

She felt the tears spill over, making tracks down her cheeks. She didn’t feel so divided now. Both sides of her brain were coping with the news in the same way, which was to say, not at all. She couldn’t think anymore. She needed to sleep again. Maybe she wouldn’t wake up, this time. Or maybe it would be Tom looking down at her when she did, poking her and asking if she was coming to play. 

 _Of course I’ll come_ , she answered him silently, _of course I want to play with you_. 

She would never stop wanting that. She would never stop wishing, as long as she lived, for one more chance to hear him laugh.


End file.
